Student information system errors

The district’s new student information system (SIS) PeopleSoft has hindered students and faculties’ ability to access and submit applications and add classes at Pierce.

Dean of Student Services William Marmolejo said that the new system was overwhelmed with student records, resulting in the technical errors.

“When you have thousands and thousands of records, old records as well as new students coming in there, the system takes a break,” Marmolejo said. “Students couldn’t even register for classes on day two. We were scrambling. We found out it was one of the servers we set up. We fixed it, and we haven’t had a problem since then.”

AJ Dimalanta, a full-time student, said that registering for classes has been more confusing since the implementation of the new system.

“Searching for classes now is more complicated,” Dimalanta said. “With a little more instruction it could be manageable, because once they introduced the website they kind of lose you. They should display the new process on how to do these things. The system crashes a lot and is not the best.”

Student Roni Rosen said that the financial aspects of dropping and paying for classes was the most tedious to figure out.

“To make it easier to access, I would want things to be more clear. I was able to pay for classes, but the only thing was that I couldn’t drop a class, and it didn’t really tell me how much money I was expected to get in return. I had to go wait in line at the business to find out,” Rosen said.

Lauren Dziedzic, said that because the system was down during the summer, it was more frustrating trying to sign up for classes for the semester.

“The first time I logged in and saw it was available, the link was a bad link and the system was down a few times,” Dziedzic said. “Especially during summer before school started which made it difficult for me.”

Other students, particularly those who are new to the district, found the transition much smoother.

“It’s honestly been an easy experience to get into classes,” Malia Ewart, a transfer student, said. “I can get everything done in a day or two, which is pretty nice. The system seems to be pretty efficient, adding classes is efficient, and transferring units has been pretty easy.”

According to Marmolejo, students won’t have anymore issues with PeopleSoft.

“The new system is supposed to work better with deadlines. We will do whatever it takes to accommodate, and we will not turn people away,” Marmolejo said. “We will do whatever it takes to get students into the class if there are issues on their transcripts that shouldn’t even be there. In do time it will work out. I am confident that a year from now, you will not be having questions about the PeopleSoft system.”

Enrollment numbers continue to be down throughout the district. According to Marmolejo, the low numbers are due to various reasons, but confusion with the new SIS system may contribute to lower numbers for the next few semesters.

“Our enrollment numbers have been off,” Marmolejo said. “I do believe the issues could have something to do with it. I haven’t seen the numbers, but I imagine that it is impacting it.”